Choose Yourself Book Summary I Who have you Chosen?

Book – Choose Yourself (Summary)

Author – James Altucher

Genre – Self-help Book

Published in – 2013

One thing is for sure: if you don’t make courageous choices for yourself, nobody else will.

In the era of fast change, unexpected turns in life, it is imperative that we choose ourselves. James through his ups and downs in life & business teaches important lessons to choose yourself.

James claims it is one thing to know “The Secret”, repeat affirmations, while it’s completely another thing to create opportunities. He provides step by step guides and urges readers to choose themselves in all aspects of life at all times.

I loved the way James describes entrepreneurs – Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur are the ability to fail, to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on them, and to be persistent, so even if you fail, you learn and move on to the next adventure.

About The Author –

JAMES ALTUCHER is a successful entrepreneur, chess master, investor and writer. He has started and run more than 20 companies and sold several of those businesses for large exits.

He has also run venture capital funds, hedge funds, angel funds, and currently sits on the boards of several companies. His blog has attracted more than 10 million readers since its launch in 2010.

About The Book –

As we move toward the employee-less society, where ideas become currency and innovation gets rewarded more than manual or managerial services, you will have the opportunity to live the life you want.

James not only lays out how to go about creating a side hustle, set the realistic expectation and be willing to work, but he also clears lots of myths around entrepreneurship and how to go about it.

He encourages readers to choose themselves, relies on their ideas, implements them, creates something of their own, as that’s where the economy is moving. Corporate are reducing permanent staff, temp jobs and freelancing is on rising.

Covid-19 alone is responsible for a huge shift in how everyone perceives work, travel, productivity. Internet and technology have made many jobs comfortable and many redundant at the same time.

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A couple of Great Points from the Book

1) Permanently, Temporary –

• Companies simply don’t need the same amount of people anymore to be as productive as they’ve always been. We are moving toward a society without employees. It’s not here yet. But it will be. And that’s okay.

• It’s a phase where ideas are more important than people and everyone will have to choose themselves for happiness.

• In every single industry, the middleman is being taken out of the picture, causing more disruption in employment but also greater efficiencies and more opportunities for unique ideas to generate real wealth.

2) Rejection –

• Its part of everything we do. Whether we like it or not, we have to face it if we want growth. No one likes to be rejected and yet one who is able to surpass rejection reaps the real growth.

• Rejection and the fear of rejection is the biggest impediment we face to choosing ourselves. We can all put together books about all the times we are rejected.

3) Time Traveling –

• I Loved the way James described the time we waste in thoughts of past and future.

• Most people obsess on regrets in their past or anxieties in their future. He call this “time traveling.” The past and future don’t exist. They are memories and speculation, neither of which you have any control over. You don’t need to time travel anymore. You can live right now.

4) Simple Daily Practice –

James explains no matter what our situation is, we can always make tiny changes, inculcate a few habits in our life to get off the ground and get traction. As mentioned in the book ‘The One Thing’ success is not consequential, but sequential. One thing good we do in one area positively affects another area as well.

Few Daily practices from the list you may consider –

• Sleep Eight Hours.
• No Junk Food.
• No Complaining For The Whole Day.
• No Gossip.
• Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything.
• Think of ten people you are grateful for.
• Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper.

5) Don’t have opinions –

• This one is really big and we all get sucked at times in convincing others to our point of view or defending our existing belief. We rarely can change others mind. Most people have their opinions so dear to them and barely are looking to change them.

• Yet we care so much about all those things we’ve been taught from birth are “important” or “our way of life” that have actually become burden and waste of time because we cling to them and protect them like they are more precious than the time and energy we waste protecting them.

6) Maintaining Your Intelligence –

• James advises readers to let go of our negative feelings like regret, resentment, jealousy as it drastically affects our intelligence and also adversely affects our ability to make good decision.

7) Honesty is the only way to make money –

This is the opposite of what you have heard or might witness.

• James explains that dishonesty and crookedness only works till it works, and then BAM! You hit rock bottom and it takes long time to gain trust back.

• Honesty on the other hand has compounding effects. It may not make you money immediately, but in long terms you’ll have opportunities pouring in, as people like to deal with honest people.

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I have also created a video of a few quotes from the book – Hope you like it. Please do subscribe to my YouTube channel – Myread4change

Conclusion –

It is an amazing book, encouraging readers to embrace the new economy and move on from the Industrial Age, where the concept of corporate taking care of employees was popularized.

If you are looking for step by step process to set any new habit or start a side hustle, you may consider reading The 1% Rule book, which lays out setting goals and break them into the daily task to implement.

Hope this book summary gave you a fair idea of what to expect from Choose Yourself Book.

Thank You, For Reading.

Muzammil